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He eyed the streams coming down from the mountains. If they dried up, his crops would dry up with them. They seemed all right. He worried anyhow. He'd never known a farmer who didn't worry. Even the white men beside whom he'd fought had worried about what was happening to their farms while they went to war.
He'd plowed. He'd planted his corn and beans and squashes. Now he and the rest of his family watched them grow-and weeded to make sure they would grow. Work on a farm was never done. Even so, he sent his children into Baroyeca for schooling as often as they could go. He wanted them to have a chance at a life that wasn't work, work, work every minute of every day. He didn't know how much of a chance they would have, but any chance was better than none.
Teachers taught in English, of course. Rodriguez worried about that only every now and again-would the children forget their heritage? More often, he thought it good that they learn as much of the dominant language of the CSA as they could.
Magdalena knew very little English. With his wife, Rodriguez stuck to Spanish. Because of that, his sons and daughters-especially his sons-thought he understood less English than he really did. They started using it among themselves to say things they didn't want him to follow.
"Silly old fool," Miguel called him one day, smiling as if it were a compliment.
Rodriguez boxed his son's ears. He smiled, too, though he doubted whether Miguel appreciated it. "Silly young fool," he said, also in English.
After that, his children were a lot more careful when they had something to say either to him or about him. He went on about his business, more amused than otherwise. Life taught all sorts of lessons, and only some of them came from school.
No matter how tired he was at the end of a day, he tried to go into Baroyeca one evening a week for the Freedom Party meeting. Magdalena had given up complaining about that when she saw he came back neither drunk nor smelling of a puta 's cheap perfume.
As far as Rodriguez was concerned, the scent of victory in the air was headier than liquor, sweeter than the dubious charms of Baroyeca's handful of women of easy virtue. (With the closing of the silver mines, a lot of the whores had moved to other towns, towns where they hoped to do better for themselves. The business collapse had had all sorts of unexpected, unfortunate consequences.)
Robert Qui
Those speeches gave Hipolito Rodriguez a window on a wider world, a world beyond Baroyeca. After one of them, he said, " Senor Qui
"If Jake Featherston says it, you can take it to the bank," Qui
"Of course I do," Rodriguez answered quickly; he knew a dangerous question when he heard one. That didn't mean he wasn't telling the truth, though. "Without the Party, what would we be?"
"Bad off, that's what," Qui
"Si, senor," Rodriguez said as the other men at the meeting nodded.
"Bueno." Qui
Carlos Ruiz asked a question that had also been in Rodriguez's mind: "After Senor Featherston wins the election, what will the Confederate States be like?"
"That's easy, Carlos," Robert Qui
"I like it," Ruiz said simply. Rodriguez nodded. So did the rest of the local men at the Freedom Party headquarters. How could anyone not like such a program? The United States were a long way off, yes, but they deserved vengeance. The room was full of veterans. They'd all fought the USA during the war.
Someone behind Rodriguez said, "I don't want to go back into the Army, but I will if I have to." That drew more nods. To his own surprise, Rodriguez found himself contributing one. He'd had all the war he wanted, and then some. But if it was a matter of turning the tables on the USA, he knew he would redon the color the Confederates called butternut.
"You are all good, patriotic men. I knew you were," Qui
Two or three men raised their hands. Carlos Ruiz was one of them. He said, "Don Joaquin says the Freedom Party is nothing but a pack of bandidos, and must be stopped."
"Does he? Well, well, well." Robert Qui
"I don't know what you mean, Senor Qui
"And you do not think he ought to?" Qui
"Don Joaquin is a stubborn man," Ruiz warned. Qui
As the meeting was breaking up, he asked Ruiz and Rodriguez and three or four other men to stay behind. "It would be a shame if anything happened to Don Joaquin's barn," he remarked. "It would be an even bigger shame if anything happened to his house."
"He has guards," Carlos said. "They carry pistols."
Qui
The locals looked at one another. No, a patron wasn't what his grandfather had been. Still, the idea of attacking his grounds, of attacking his buildings, hadn't crossed their minds up till now. "If we do this," Hipolito Rodriguez said slowly, "we have to win, and Senor Featherston has to win in November. If either of those things fails, we are dead men. You understand this, I hope."
"Oh, yes." Qui
A few nights later, Rodriguez slid quietly through the darkness, a military rifle in his hands. He hadn't carried a Tredegar since 1917, but the weight felt familiar. So did the crouch in which he moved.